The Patient Waiting - Maitri and Health Anxiety
By Casey Douglass
I have a doctor’s
appointment today. Well, I say today, it’s early this evening, so
might just as well be tomorrow. I don’t say this as someone wanting
to bash waiting times or the NHS, I’m saying it as someone who
knows how appointments can loom over your day, particularly if you
suffer with any kind of health anxiety. I’m happy to have it at the
time it is, I just need to get there, one second at a time.
It makes me sound like
the laziest time-traveller around. I mean, it takes zero conscious
effort to move forward in time at the same speed as everyone else. I
say conscious because I know that during this time, your body is
using chemical reactions and doing other things to stay alive, which
is certainly effortful. Unless you are a robot. Hmm, a robot could be
viewed in a similar way, using chemical energy in its battery to
function. Okay, you might be a human or a robot, it makes no difference
to this post I guess. Best of luck to you whichever you are.
I am a patient person.
Decades of meditation and living with an anxiety disorder have shown
me the virtue of being patient, both for health reasons, and in
social interactions. It’s harder some times than others, like when
you have a medical appointment looming, but there seems like a whole
day between now and then. To top things off, your mind is firmly in
the future already, waving from the doctor’s office, speaking to
the doctor, getting that verdict on just what is wrong or right with
you. That’s the tough part, the continual gentle effort of trying
to keep the mind in the present moment. The lure of reassurance
fantasies, or worst case scenario horror-fests, is a force that is
hard to bear.
Since my current health
anxiety flared last weekend, I have been practising the Buddhist
notion of maitri, of loving kindness. This entails gently getting the
mind to “stay” with whatever is going on in the current moment,
to open up to it rather than to close off or push things away. It is
something I’ve done before and have found new interest in this past
week. I just sit, focus on my breath, and let myself feel what I
feel, breathing it into my heart. On the exhale, I see whatever might
help that feeling or state being projected to myself, and everyone
else in the same situation. So in this case, I might be breathing in
nervousness, and breathing out ease. I’m not doing it for any kind
of outcome, to “get rid” of the feeling or to change it. I’m
just trying to become friends with myself, as sitting with someone
and wanting to change them isn’t often borne from a friendly place
is it?
So that’s probably me
for the day, doing the best I can to spend my time in a way that is
helpful, with periods of maitri and rest. I feel that I’ve embraced
the chance to practice “being” with how today is panning out, and I can see how it presents an opportunity to open up to things.
Hopefully, and signs seem to point this way as far as I can tell at
least, things will be, or are, okay. Whatever happens, I want to use
this opportunity to grow as a person, as there will inevitably come a
time when things won’t be okay, and I’d like to greet that time
in as open a way as possible.
Thank you for reading, and I hope your day is going as well as possible.
